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“In order to discover new lands, you must be willing to lose sight of the shore.”

- Andre Gide

I’ll get right to the point: You are a Pre-Internet organization in a Post-Internet world. Adopting the web as a marketing tool alone is misunderstanding what is histories best platform for productive interaction. To use it only for a dissemination tool like television, radio or newspapers is to forgo transformational growth.The Internet has preceded a fundamental shift into what some experts are calling the creator economy. It happened seemingly overnight but in fact, what we now refer to as the Internet has been growing for some 15 years, becoming more and more a part of our lives. Now, with mobile computing about to explode, the transformation will be fully in place.A person, formerly known as a consumer — their ability to passively participate in their own experiences and add layers of value is the future of commerce. Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO referred ever so eloquently to the change in how brands interact with their customers as:“The shift from a passive relationship between producer and consumer, to the active engagement of everyone in experiences that are meaningful, productive and profitable.” As an organization, your capability to thrive in this new economy is limited by your business processes, most or all of which were created prior to the ubiquitous web we all inhabit today. Each organization is different but here are the things that you need to keep in mind when running your business moving forward:1. Passive Participation The buzz-word of the social media evolution has been engagement. Marketers rushing to create deep levels of experience with customers who will in turn share their brand with their friends and co-workers. It seems perfectly logical — The more you interact with someone, the more likely they are to care about and buy from you. The problem is, in a word: Abundance. People don’t have the capacity to engage with anywhere near the amount of brands being thrust on them. Even if they wanted to and the large majority don’t. The last 30-plus years of brand marketing, mass dissemination through television, radio, magazines, billboards, etc. has made us mostly immune to advertising. Turning up the volume is not the answer. Brands must find ways to allow us to passively participate with their brand, adding layers of our own value to the experience. Try asking us what we think about your product instead of if we want to buy it —- and not in a Reagan-era focus group either. Get us to buy into you. To your efforts in a way that is simple and relevant to me, Get me to buy into what you stand for and then worry about selling me something. Groupon understands this. Instead of trying to sell us on a product or group of products, they said simply - “We have deals for 70% to 90% off local businesses in your area and we deliver them once per day to you by email. Buy if you want, or don’t. Opt-out anytime.” That is passive participation. All I have to do is enter my email and they create an opportunity to experience something —- or not.2. Social GesturesBy far my favorite thing to come out of social networks. We have clients who are spending not a single dime on marketing their platforms and products as a result of properly leveraging social gestures. These quick, automated, lightweight forms of messaging are going to become so ubiquitous in our communication, you will soon forget a day when you did not fill up your gas tank, get a coffee at Starbucks or drag yourself to the gym and have the opportunity to gesture to your networks. The simplest way to explain what these nifty things are is to give you a few examples:Blackberry - This message sent using Blackberry. Foursquare - Jason just checked in at Starbucks.Facebook - Annie “likes” your photo from the beach.Student Coupons - James just redeemed a deal at 7-11.Some forward-thinking brands are already making the leap towards integrating these gestures into the physical environment as Coke recently did in Israel with it’s Coca-Cola Village. Fight the urge to think about gestures as a social networking tool. Don’t stop at embedding a “Like button” on your website. How do you make gesturing part of the operation of your product or platforms? The interface you provide your customers and products fundamentally determines the use. 3. Mobile = RelevanceEverybody is throwing money at mobile these days. Mobile ready websites, IPhone and Android applications but few seem to understand the change in human behavior that will eventually come out of the advent of web-enabled smart phones. I touched on this in an essay around the print media and specifically the coupon industry a few months back. Basically, the existence of truly mobile computing changes human beings at our core. If you don’t believe me, watch a group of teenagers interact with each other for 10 minutes in a public place. They have their faces buried in their phone, not because they have to but because they can. Now, most adults have no urge to be texting about our favorite new band but when it comes to utility based tasks, like the cheapest gas near by, movie reviews on our way to the theatre or price shopping a new refrigerator, make no mistake, we will too become one with that little screen into the biggest of networks. The two patterns I see in mobile so far among brands, both troubling, while not surprising is the prevalence of discount and relying on platforms like Apple to build an audience. Neither of these things alone create utility. I will give you a real world example of something we are building right now: 50 Tickets is a simple SMS based application that allows you to send a text message to a number you save in your phone or see posted at concerts and on campuses. The text you send contains the name(s) of a band or entertainer you would like to see live at some point.The application stores that data and when, if ever, tickets for an event with that person(s) are available online for a venue within 50 miles of your location, the minute they are available, you get a text message with a link to buy tickets. The technology is actually very simple and not all that important. It is understanding the behavior and giving people a passive, relevant way to overcome it. In the case of concert tickets: While many of us enjoy live music, few of us think to go home and search or upcoming concerts. Yes, there are dozens if not hundreds of applications that let you search and buy concert tickets and that is entirely the point. The utility in something like this is the fact that I can just send a free or near-free text message with the name of a band I just heard and forget about it. In return, the service sends me a single text message if the tickets are ever available and then I can decide whether I want to buy them or not. Simple + Relevant = Useful. 4. Extend the Story The fact that we have all come to refer to television and print as Old Media and the Internet and social networks as New Media is likely the reason brands seem to approach these two things separately. That is a mistake. The opportunity exists to implement campaigns in traditional media forms and leverage social mediums to extend the story in participatory ways. The venerable Gary Vaynerchuk speaks/yells a lot about this and I personally love him for it. (maybe it’s just an East Coast thing) Either way, he is 100% correct and brands have been super-lazy about this kind of marketing so far. We have not scratched the surface in bridging the two mediums and allowing people to participate with brands and causes online in a way that affects their experience in a productive way.Get out there and push the envelope. 5. Experience Matters MostThese technologies, particularly mobile, lead first to a fire-salementality. That’s the easy way out and anybody simply copying the early-movers in the group sale or coupon space are likely wasting their time. The good news for those of us who loathe the idea of using discount as our unique selling proposition is that with everyone vying for the prominent position of biggest discount, people are too becoming immune to that type of advertising. They are desperate to be part of experiences they can enjoy. To discover new things, enjoy them, share them and do it over again. Some retail brands are grasping this and Pop-Up Stores are an early iteration of what is to come here. You have to think about experience more than ever. People share experiences, good or bad and it is becoming easier to do it. I recently had a bad experience with a terribly dirty restroom in a restaurant on a recent business trip. Within seconds, I had taken a photo with my phone and made a comment via Twitter.Soon, this kind of activity will be everywhere. Brands who cultivate good experiences will benefit from it while those who don’t make the extra effort will suffer. We are not just talking about keeping the bathrooms clean mind you. Think about the entire process. For example, what are your customers doing while they wait in line? This company came up with a productive way to create an experience that people will remember. There are easy solutions. Get into your customers shoes and walk around.6. Caring Out LoudThe common misconception brands have about their customers is that we expect them to be perfect. We don’t - We just want to know that it matters you screwed up and you are willing to rectify it. In the world we live in today, I would argue that making a mistake is among your biggest opportunities to expose your brand in a positive light to a large group of people. Talk openly about your mistakes and what you did (not what you are going to do) to rectify them. People have ingrained what I call the SAWBE (service as would be expected) complex. Basically, they have low expectations when it comes to customer service. Surprise them and win.Eventually all companies will have to open up their customer service in a transparent manner. The more connected we all are, the more public. All that talk on how one person, one bad review, can affect dozens of people in their peer group. Now even the biggest introvert can talk to thousands of people about their experience, good or bad. Your best bet is to anticipate that and encourage communication with your audience. Listen, respond and share with your employees and customers as everyone can learn from it. 7. Show Us the ProcessAll this talk of transparency in the age of the Internet has got most brands confused I think. It is not so much that people want to know everything about your companies history and people. The many corporate websites with ten thousand word “about us” sections lead me to believe there is confusion here. The issue is much more about attention span. The fact that people have little patience for trying to understand what it is you do and how you do it. Lucky for you, there is a simple way to accommodate them —- Show them how you do what you do. Use a video (under 2 minutes) on the main page of your website or put a little process drawing that illustrates your business procedures. Use your imagination.

Ultimately, you need to tell me, not just what you do but also what you stand for and what my experience is going to be like. You have to do that in an interesting and efficient way or you will quickly find people bouncing off your website, never to return. This same rule applies to television and radio commercials. Stop selling and start communicating with us. Get us to your website so we can become part of your audience. 8. Innovate and Incubate. Repeat.As you might have noticed, the advent of the Internet has changed a lot of things. One of them is the speed at which markets evolve. Some would argue even the speed at which human beings evolve. The result as it pertains to brands is that you have to, more than ever before, focus your energy on innovating. If you do not have 20% or more of your assets and/or human capital focused on new IP, you are in serious threat of being overcome by more agile competitors without all that physical infrastructure. This is especially the case in retail. They are in big trouble when it comes to mobile and the movement towards discount in our culture. Look around your stores at the more and more people with their nose buried in their phone. They are comping your prices and looking for coupons from your competitors. Once one of the search engines pick up Groupon, you are going to have to contend with relevant, discounted gift card vouchers able to be purchased with the click of a button. Experience drives the new economy. The rest is a race to the bottom. You need to create participatory platforms for your customers. To be clear, I don’t mean experience as in customer service. That is key too, for the reasons stated above, but more important is: Why you? Experimentation is the key. Keep trying new things and measure what works.

9. Social Media ProactiveIt is great to see so many brands taking to Facebook and Twitter to create a presence and interact with an audience - It is about time. My only beef is that the inbound customer service mentality seems to still exist. Yes, if I go onto Twitter and ask you a question you respond. Maybe you are even monitoring your own name online - you better be. The one thing you are not doing, at least most of you, is being proactive.There are thousands of people, literally right this second, talking online about something relevant to what you do or sell. Go out and talk to them. Answer their questions, point them in the right direction. Do anything except try and sell them something directly. Make friends, build an audience and then you can make your pitch in a relevant way. Take one easy step in this direction. Go onto Twitter Search and enter some relevant terms. Not just your brand name. If you are in Fast Food, search “Burgers”, “Fries”, etc. Now talk to those people. Simple. Whatever you are passionate about. Be passionate out loud.In summation, keep in mind that this is not just about keeping the current audience engaged, it is about creating new ones that even the largest brands, those that run commercials on prime-time television could never reach. Even the most popular network shows get 12-15 million viewers. That includes those viewers that fast forward past commercials or head out to the kitchen during the breaks. The audience out there right now, ready to become aware of you and willing to be communicated with —- that audience is massive. Just don’t make the mistake of treating it as a single mass.—-